Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice by Ken Bruen (Five Star Fiction S.)

Bank robber Cooper picks her up at the supermarket, where he spies her shoplifting and warns her that the store detective is watching her. She puts the stolen food back, and he buys her lunch. It’s the worst mistake he’s ever made. What this pretty young American girl is doing in South London is a mystery to him. Her name is Cassie, and she acts sane until they get home. She’s normal as he takes her clothes off, normal for everything that follows, normal until she tells him that now that he’s touched her, he can never have another woman. He thinks it’s a joke until he wakes up and finds her note, which explains that she drugged him and left with his pistol and some of the money he’s made holding up banks. Only death will keep her away, so death it must be.

Ken Bruen was born in Galway, Ireland in 1951. The author of sixteen novels, he spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, SE Asia and South America. He now lives in Galway City with his wife and daughter.